NexGen marketing

Initially Nexgen announced the Nx586 CPU and the Nx587 coprocessor at speeds of 60MHz and 66MHz. The floating point processor would be designed as a separate chip as was common in the 386 days. If you needed one you could buy it and plug it in a special socket on the motherboard. The CPU was not pin-compatible with any of Intel's CPU, it had 463 pins and used Nexgen's own NxVL chipset. As a reference, the Intel Pentium had 296 pins.
Prices were set at $460 for the 60MHz version, $506 for the 66MHz version and $128 for Nx587. As a reference, Intel's Pentium 60 and 66 sold for $675 and $750 respectively. However production of the Nx586 and Nx587 was not yet started.
Having a newly designed CPU is great, but it has to be sold. The Nexgen marketing department was very busy gaining support in the PC business for the Nx586. By april Nexgen announced deals with 11 PC manufacturers in the US and Taiwan. Many new manufacturers and OEM distributors followed later in 1994, but no major player like Compaq, IBM or Dell could be contracted to use the Nx586 in their systems.
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In September 1994 NexGen was ready to begin volume shipments of its Nx586. By that time the x86 processor landscape had changed drastically. Intel had released the Pentium and clock speeds were already up to 100MHz. Nexgen changed its strategy for its CPU and introduced a range of speed grades : Nx586-P75, Nx586-P80, Nx586-P90 and the Nx586-P100. The initial speeds of 60MHz and 66MHz announced in March 1994 were never released. Also the Nx587 would never be released, the two socket solution turned out to be impractical. Instead Nexgen announced that it would release a Nx586 with a Nx587 in one multichip module (MCM) package.
With a big player like Intel, getting a foothold in the processor business is hard. To gain the buyers attention continues price drops had to be made. By the time the Nx586 was actually for sale, the entry Nx586-P75 cost $404, the P80 $477, $539 for the P90 and the P100 was priced at $777. With new price cuts in mind Nexgen sought ways to reduce costs. One way was to make production of the Nx586 more efficient, fit more die's on a wafer. A die shrink was announced in the first half of 1995.
Compaq backed Nexgen financially since 1990, but had never used the Nx586 for its PC's. But in April 1995 Compaq announced it would introduce desktop PC's built around Nexgen's 586-class microprocessor. This was a Nexgen's first design-win with a top-tier PC maker and it hoped more would follow.
Compaq wasn't comfortable with Nexgen having only IBM as foundry partner. Promptly Nexgen announced it would make a deal with another foundry partner by the end of the year.
Nexgen discontinued its Nx586 P75 and P80 around August 1995. Demand had shifted to higher performance parts and NexGen needed the capacity for the imminent rollout of its new P120 and P133. Prices were once again reduced from $299 to $245 for the P90 and from $399 to $340 for the P100. In the mean time Nexgen was still trying to close additional deals for the manufacturing of motherboards and chipsets. To date motherboards were only manufactured by Alaris and chipsets by Fujitsu.
For over a year now Nexgen was shipping FPU less Nx586's, but this was about to end. In November 1995 Nexgen announced the Nx586 with integrated FPU, the Nx586 Pf100 and the faster Nx586 Pf120. The CPU and FPU would packaged together on a Multichip Module and manufactured by IBM. The Nx586 Pf100 would be available in December and the Pf120 was scheduled for Q1 1996.